When it goes wrong
Working with no signal
Muster keeps working. Once it has been opened on the phone with a signal, it opens without one, and draws your hours from a copy of your own last four months that the phone keeps. Entries you record go into a queue on the device and are sent, in the order you made them, whenever the app is open and has a signal - when you open it, switch back to it, or tap the strip - with the moment you pressed, not the moment they were sent.
What works with no signal: clocking in and out, pausing and resuming, Standard hours, adding an entry by hand, changing or deleting one, and changing the note on a running shift. Each shows at once: new and changed entries on Today and in the Log, marked Waiting to sync, and all of it in the week's hours. A pause made on another phone needs a signal to resume; one made on this phone does not. Your pay so far shows the server's last figure, with its time and what it has not counted yet - pay is never worked out on the phone.
What waits for a signal: signing in, the full pay breakdown, downloading the timesheet, Travel's day counts, saving a journey, and anything older than the copy on the phone. Each says so rather than showing nothing.
Hours are sent only while the app is open. Open it once you are back in signal, and before the period is submitted: a submitted period refuses them, and they wait on the phone under could not be sent until an administrator lets them in. Downloading the timesheet for HR, or issuing an invoice, sends what is waiting first, and asks before going ahead if anything could not be sent. On an iPhone, use Muster from the home screen - Safari can clear what a website keeps on the phone after a week without a visit.
A strip appears across the top of the screen saying what is going on, and it is careful to keep the situations apart, because "3 waiting" said over hours that will never send is the version that loses them. A clock-in or clock-out always shows on the phone at once and is sent straight after; if that send finds no signal, the strip says No signal there and then. When it says more than one thing, they are side by side, separated by a dot.
| The strip says | What it means | What to do |
|---|---|---|
| No signal - showing your hours as of 06:12 | What you see is the copy on the phone, from the last time the app reached the server. Before today it names the day too | Nothing. It goes when a signal returns |
| No signal, and nothing saved on this phone yet | The app has never reached the server on this phone, so it has no copy to show | Open it once with a signal, so it can fetch your jobs |
| N waiting to sync - tap to sync now | Recorded here, not yet sent | Nothing - it sends itself when a signal returns. Tap it to send now |
| N waiting - the station has not answered since 14:05 | The phone has a signal, but the server has been turning it away for ten minutes or more. Everything is still saved on the phone | If it goes on, tell whoever runs Muster |
| Syncing 2 of 5… | Sending, in order. It counts what goes up, and a clock-in goes with its clock-out as one | Nothing. If the signal goes part-way, the rest stays queued; nothing is sent twice |
| N could not be sent – tap | The server refused them. This never resolves on its own | Tap the strip |
| N held for another sign-in | Queued under a different sign-in from the one on this device now | Tap the strip |
| … – tap to acknowledge | A notice somebody has to read and agree they have read | Tap it and read it |
Over one morning, word for word:
| Where | The strip says |
|---|---|
| In the basement | No signal - showing your hours as of 06:12 · 3 waiting to sync - tap to sync now |
| Back at the van | Syncing 2 of 3… |
| All sent | No strip: everything is on the server |
Could not be sent
Tapping lists them with the reason and offers to try again, which is the right first move: a period that has since been unlocked, or a job that has since been approved, will land fine the second time. If you decline, it offers to discard them, and says plainly that the hours are deleted.
Held for another sign-in
Two different situations, and Muster tells them apart:
- They belong to somebody else's sign-in. Only that person's token can send them. Either they sign in on this device again, or you let the entries go. Both are offered, behind an explicit yes. Muster will not name whose they are: all the device holds of that sign-in is a fragment of a token, which identifies nobody.
- This device cannot tell whose they are. They may well be your own hours from an earlier sign-in, after a replacement token for a lost one, for instance. Muster says so, names the way to get them back, and asks twice before letting go of them.
Either way, the dates and times are listed so you can recognise your own week.
Messages you may see
| Message | What it means |
|---|---|
| Saved, but noted: this shift finishes at … which has not happened yet | The entry is saved. Muster does not refuse time you have not worked yet, but it will not let it pass silently either |
| That one is still running - clock out to edit it | Clock out first, then edit |
| That entry is not loaded any more - pull down … | The screen is behind the server. Pull down and try again |
| No job to log against yet | Ask HR or an admin to add the job you work on. If they have given you project changes from the app, add it yourself: see Jobs |
| Set a default job in Settings first | The one-tap buttons need to know where to put the hours |
| That username and password did not match | Check both, and try again |
| Too many attempts - wait a few minutes and try again | Too many sign-ins, or wrong current passwords, in a short time. Wait, then try again |
| That is not your current password - nothing was changed | On Change your password. Type the password you sign in with now. Forgotten it? See Getting back in |
| Your access is on hold - ask your admin for a new token | Your admin has revoked your access, or the token they issued has lapsed. Ask them for a new access link |
| Your access has ended - ask your admin | The last day set for your account has passed |
| That link cannot be used | The access link has been used, has lapsed, or was never one. Ask for a new one |
| That token was rejected | Wrong token, a withdrawn one, or a spent invitation. Ask for a new one |
| Set this phone's time zone to automatic | On the clock-in or clock-out form. See The phone is on the wrong clock |
| Clocked in - the station is busy, so it will be sent in a moment | Nothing is wrong. It is shown, and waits its turn |
| Clock-out not saved - the station said: … | Usually that HR corrected the entry while it was running. Tap the strip to see the server's own record of it |
| Muster is busy - nothing was saved. Press again in a moment | Exactly that |
| Muster stopped part-way and cannot tell whether that was saved | Look in the Log before doing it again |
| Could not save settings to your account | Saved on this device only. Try again when you have a signal |
| Pay settings have not loaded, so the salary was not saved | Wait a moment and save again |
| Your overtime rules did not load | Nothing shown in that group is them, and nothing there will be saved. Close the group and open it again to retry |
| Stay added, but … was not closed - close it on the timeline | Tap the stay you left on Travel's timeline and give it a Depart date |
| The journey was not saved (…). Where you ended is kept | Tap Save journey on the Journey card to try again |
| No signal - the drive is kept on this phone | Press Save journey again when you have a signal |
| That looks like a postcode | Postcodes are not looked up yet. Type the town's name |
| No town of 5,000 people by that name | Only towns that size are listed. Try the nearest one that is |
| Import stopped | The reason leads, and what to fix follows. See The Log |
| Only an admin may override a submitted period | The period is closed. Ask an administrator |
The hours look wrong on the timesheet
Work down this list before assuming the export is at fault.
- Check the figures on Reports, then Show the plain report. That is what the exporter actually produced, and it names the column every hour went into.
- Look for days booked as not worked. A day booked with Not worked today, or as a Rest Day, is plain rate and out of the weekly 39. A weekend day you worked must not be booked either way.
- Look at the activity. Rest Day, Sick, Lieu Day and Bank Holiday are each outside the weekly 39, and each for a different reason. See How your hours are paid.
- Look for a journey through midnight. Its hours are split between its two days on purpose, each at its own day's rate.
- Check the period. If the workbook you uploaded does not cover the period you exported, the report says so at the top.
- Check Settings › Overtime rules. The threshold, the columns and the period boundary all live there, and each row says where its value came from.
A screen total that differs from the sheet by a few minutes is not possible any more: every screen shows each entry's hours rounded, as the sheet does.
The travel counts look wrong
- Per-country totals adding to more than the calendar is correct. Arrival and departure days each count as a whole day, so a travel day sits in two countries. Needs attention lists them for exactly this reason.
- An overlap means two stays claim the same days. Muster will not pick a winner. Usually it is an open stay you never closed: close it on the date you left.
- A gap is not a day at home. It is a date the record says nothing about, and it is listed rather than assumed, because a count built across a gap under-reports.
- Still asked where you stayed? Set your home town in Settings › Home and workplace, and the days away are recorded for you.
The phone is on the wrong clock
With GPS on, Muster compares where the phone is against what the phone thinks the time is. When they are three hours or more apart, as a phone left on UK time in Mexico is, the Clock in and Clock out forms open with a red box: Set this phone's time zone to automatic. Muster records your hours on the phone's clock, so until it is fixed, hours after midnight in the phone's zone go on the next day: a Saturday evening in Mexico on a phone set to UK time is paid as Sunday. It never stops a clock-in or clock-out. Fix the phone's time zone, then check the day in the Log.
Every clock-in, clock-out and pause is also kept as tapped, on the phone's own clock and zone, so a wrong day can be traced back to the press.
Getting back in
On a new phone, or after signing out: sign in with your username and password. Losing a phone loses nothing but the token on it; the entries you have already sent are on the server and are untouched. Tell your admin, who can revoke the lost phone's token.
Want a new password, and know the old one: Settings, Account, Change your password. Your other phones are signed out and need the new one; this phone stays signed in.
Forgotten your password: ask your admin to set a new one for you in the console, then sign in with it. An access link signs a phone in, but it keeps the password you already have; it never replaces one.
Never made one: ask your admin for an access link. Opening it asks you to make a password.
On hold, or ended: only your admin can let you back in, with a new access link or by moving the end date.
Before you use Forget token on this device, make sure the strip is clear. Anything still waiting to sync stays on the phone, and is sent once you sign in on it again as yourself; signed in as somebody else, it is held for your sign-in.
Next: The admin console · back to the manual